Posts Tagged ‘4K’

Production and playout video server specialist EVS reported Q2 2016 financial results. Revenues for the second quarter of 2016 were €39.8 million, an increase of 70.8% over Q2 2015 results, and an increase of 48.0% versus the preceding quarter, Q1 2016. Excluding the effect of exchange rate movements and big event rentals, the EVS’s Q2 2016 revenue increased 67.6% versus the year earlier period.

Driving revenue in the quarter were upgrades by outside broadcast (“OB”) companies upgrading equipment in preparation for the large events of 2016, in particular the Rio 2016 Summer Olympics. Year-over-year revenue growth also benefited in part from a softer comparable period of Q2 2015.

Net profit for Q2 2016 amounted to €12.6 million (€0.93 per share), compared to €0.70 million (€0.05 per share) in the year earlier period and €4.9 million (€0.36 per share) in the preceding quarter.

Gross margins for the quarter were 77.3%, an increase of over 1000 basis points compared to Q2 2015, and an increase of 680 basis points when measured against Q1 2016. Gross margins were boosted in part by higher margins associated with Rental revenue. Management attributed the margin increase in Rental revenue to the completion of C-Cast development work, which negatively impacted the gross margin of Rental revenue in earlier periods.

Operating profit for the second quarter of 2016 was €17.40 million, up 815.8% compared to the second quarter of 2015 and up 128.9% versus the first quarter of 2016. Operating margin for the quarter was 44.0%, a sharp rise over the 8.0% operating margins from the same period last year and the 22.7% operating margin achieved during the first quarter of 2016.

Research and development (“R&D”) expenses for the second quarter of 2016 were €5.45 million, or 14.0% of total revenue, a decline of 11.5% versus the R&D expense in Q2 2015, and a decline of 6.0% against Q1 2016. As a percentage of sales, R&D expense was 26.0% of total revenue in Q2 2015 and 22.0% during Q1 2016. Year-over-year comparisons were impacted by costs associated with the closing of EVS’s development office in Chengdu during Q2 2015.

Selling and administrative expenses for the second quarter of 2016 were €7.44 million, or 19.0% of total revenue, representing an increase 4.3% over the second quarter of 2015, and an increase of 16.3% versus the preceding quarter. As a percentage of sales, selling and administrative expense was 30.6% of total revenue in Q2 2015 and 24.0% during Q1 2016.

EVS ended the quarter with 482 employees, down slightly from 483 at the end of the first quarter of 2016, and down from the 471 employees at the end of Q2 2015.

The order book stood at €41.8 million as of August 24, 2016, with 80% to 85% of the current order book set to invoice during the third quarter of 2016. The current order book represents an increase of 13.6% over the order book on August 25, 2015 and a decline of 22.3% compared to the order book on May 10, 2016.

Revenue by Destination:

Revenues from Outside broadcast vans during the second quarter of 2016 were €22.2 million, a 75.3% increase versus the second quarter of 2015, and a 47.2% increase compared to first quarter of 2016. For the second quarter of 2016, this segment contributed 56.0% of the total revenue, which compares to 54.0% in Q2 2015 and 56.0% in Q1 2016. Revenue in this category was driven by customer upgrades to support the large event taking place in 2016.

Revenues from Studio & others during the quarter were €13.7 million, up 53.2% compared to the year earlier period, and up 16.0% versus the preceding quarter. For the second quarter of 2015, this segment contributed 34.0% of total revenue, a decline versus the contribution of 38.0% in Q2 2015 and 44.0% in Q1 2016.

Revenues from Big sporting event rentals during the quarter were €3.9 million, an increase of 127.3% versus the year-earlier period. There were no rental sales in the first quarter of 2016. For the second quarter of 2016, this segment contributed 10.0% of total revenue, a decrease versus 7.0% contribution in Q2 2015.

Systems revenue in the quarter was €36.80 million, up 68.8% versus Q2 2015, and an increase of 49.3% against Q1 2016. During the second quarter of 2016, Systems revenue represented 92.0% of total revenue, comparable to the 94.0% in Q2 2015 and 92.0% in Q1 2016.

Services revenue was €2.98 million for Q2 2016, up 97.4% versus the year ago period, and a rise of 34.2% compared to Q1 2016. Contribution to the second quarter of 2016 revenue was 7.0% of the total, which is in-line with the contribution of 6.0% in Q2 2015 and 8.0% in Q1 2016.

Revenue by Geography:

Revenue from EMEA (excluding events) in the second quarter was €13.5 million, up 52.5% against last year’s comparable quarter, and a rise of 57.7% compared to Q1 2016. Sales in EMEA (excluding events) accounted for 38.0% of EVS’s revenue during the quarter. This compares to 41.0% of total revenue during the second quarter of 2015 and 32.0% during first quarter of 2016.

Americas’ revenue for the second quarter of 2016 was €14.6 million, an increase of 107.8% versus the year-over-year period, and an increase of 38.5% compared to the preceding quarter. Americas accounted for 41.0% of total revenue during the quarter, up from 33.0% of total revenue during Q2 2015 and 39.0% in Q1 2016.

Q2 2016 revenue from the APAC region was €7.71 million, up 36.0% versus last year’s quarter, and a slight decline of 0.3% versus the preceding quarter. APAC accounted for 22.0% of total revenue in the Q2 2016, versus a contribution of 26.0% during Q2 2015 and 29.0% in Q1 2016.

Business Outlook:

As part of the earnings release, Management increased and narrowed revenue guidance for the full year. Revenues for 2016 are now expected between €128 million and €138 million.

During EVS’s conference call, Managing Director & CEO Muriel De Lathouwer, offered commentary on the market environment. “We see that the adoption of 4K and IP progressed across all geographies with more concrete discussions that we have now on those subjects with our customers. We are very happy with the order book and the evolution, but we still don’t want to have too much excitement as we know that part of the uptake of these new technologies will be included in the traditional lifecycle of upgrades.”

This is the second in a series of articles about some of the findings fromDevoncroft’s 2015 Big Broadcast Survey (BBS), a global study of broadcast industry trends, technology purchasing plans, and benchmarking of broadcast technology vendor brands. Nearly 10,000 broadcast professionals in 100+ countries took part in the 2015 BBS, making it the largest and most comprehensive market study ever conducted in the broadcast industry.

Measuring the Most Important Trends in the Broadcast and Digital Media Technology Industry

Each year, Devoncroft Partners conducts a large-scale global study of the broadcast industry called the Big Broadcast Survey (BBS). Nearly 10,000 broadcast professionals in 100+ countries participated in the 2015 BBS, making it the most comprehensive study ever done in the broadcast industry.

Firstly, we’d like to once again thank all the people who participate in the BBS each year. We’re thankful that you take time from your busy schedules to participate, and we love (and read all of) your feedback.

One of the key outputs from the BBS is the annual BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index. This is a ranking of the broadcast industry trends that are considered by BBS respondents the most commercially important to their businesses in any given year.

In order to ensure the relevance of the trends we measure each year, we spend a considerable amount of time seeking feedback about the structure of our reports from a wide variety of industry professionals.

As part of this process, the composition of the BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index is reviewed each year in conjunction with Devoncroft clients, broadcast technology end-users, and a variety of domain experts. New trends are added to the Index when BBS stakeholders believe that the value of this additional trend information outweighs the resulting distortion of the year-over-year comparisons.

Based on discussions with clients, end-users, and experts during the planning stages of the 2015 BBS project, we decided to maintain the same list of trends as contained in the 2014 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index. The benefit of this approach is a straightforward comparison of how trends were ranked in 2015 versus 2014 across all demographics.

After this review process, the decision was taken to not change the trends measured in the 2015 BBS. This enables a 1:1 comparison of trends on a year-over-year basis.

The 2015 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index

To create the 2015 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index, we presented BBS respondents with a list of 18 industry trends and asked them to identify the one trend they consider to be “most important” to their business, the one trend they consider to be “second most important” to their business, and the other trends (plural) they consider to be “also very important.”

We then apply a statistical weighting to these results, based on how research participants ranked the commercial importance of each trend.
Please note that our goal from this question is to help clients gain insight into the business drivers behind the respondent’s answer. Therefore, respondents were asked to rank these trends in the context of the commercial importance to their business, rather than “industry buzz,” or “cool technology,” or marketing hype. The 2015 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index is shown below.

When reviewing the data presented above, readers should note the following about the 2015 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index:

It is a measure of what research participants say is commercially important to their businesses in the future, not what they are doing now, or where they are spending money today (these topics will be addressed in future posts)

The chart above is visualized as a weighted index, not as a measure of the number of people that said which trend was most important to them

It measures the responses of all technology purchasers (i.e. non-vendors) who participated in the 2015 BBS, regardless of company type, company size, geographic location, job title, etc. Thus the responses of any demographic group such as a particular company type or geographic location may vary widely from the results presented in this article.

Analyzing the 2015 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index

Multi-platform content delivery (MPCD) is cited by a wide margin as the most important trend commercially to respondent businesses. This is not surprising given the rise of new distribution mediums and devices. Indeed, across multiple studies, research participants have repeatedly stated multi-platform content delivery is the most commercially important trend to their business over the next several years.

However, our discussions with broadcasters, content owners, and technology vendors indicate that despite the obvious fact that the way content is delivered and consumed has changed forever, this has not yet (with few exceptions) translated into profitable revenue streams for end-users. There are a number of reasons why this is the case, and these have significant implications for content owners, broadcasters, and technology vendors.

These implications are addressed later in this report, as well as on the Devoncroft website.

Although multi-platform content delivery is by far seen as the most important trend in 2015, there are quite a few other interesting things to consider in the BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index.

For over the past decade the transition to HDTV operations has been a major driver of end-user technology budgets, and therefore technology product sales. The first BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index, published in 2009, ranked the transition to HD as the #1 trend globally. In the seven years since, the transition to HD operations has drifted lower in the rankings based on the continued adoption of HD technology infrastructure globally. For the first time in 2014, the transition to HD operations was not ranked among the top five trends by respondents, instead ranking #6. In 2015, the transition to HD operations declined further, now ranking #8. However, within developing markets or smaller media markets within developed regions, the HD transition remains one of the strongest drivers of broadcast industry revenue.

We provide significant coverage of the ongoing global transition to HDTV operations in the 2015 BBS Global Market Report (available for purchase). This includes a granular breakdown of the current and projected future progress that end-users have made in their transition to HD, as well as the upgrade plans for fifteen product categories including cameras, switchers, routers, servers, graphics, encoders, and video transport. We’ll also be publishing more information about project-based spending and the HD transition later in this report, as well as on the Devoncroft website.

A trend that has increased in importance over the past several years is “IP networking & content delivery,” which is ranked as the #2 most important trend in the BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index.

The move to IP-based infrastructure has increased in importance in response to several market developments. Based on our research, end-user motivations for moving to IP-based infrastructure are more nuanced than simply generating operational efficiencies, though this goal is an important component. Rather, end-user responses to the Big Broadcast Survey are consistent with a more encompassing goal of moving to fundamentally different technology infrastructures to better support evolving media business models.

While the move to IP-based infrastructure is still at the stage of early adopters in broadcast operational environments, there were several notable developments during 2015. These included the progression of interoperability standards (e.g. SMPTE 2022-6), the advancement of work from the joint task force on networked media (JT-NM) [sponsored by SMPTE, EBU, and the VSF], the creation of several individual vendor ecosystems (e.g. Evertz ASPEN), and the elevated activities by large IT providers (e.g. Cisco).

A transition to IP-based infrastructures is likely inevitable given the comparative size of the broadcast technology sector versus the broader IT industry. This greater size equates to far greater research and development resources. There remains, however, several obstacles preventing widespread adoption of IP-based infrastructure in the immediate term. For this reason we are expecting the move to IP to represent a major industry driver over the mid-to-long term.

Regardless of timing, the transition to IP-based infrastructure will have profound implications for both technology buyers and suppliers.

The #3 ranked trend in the 2015 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index is “4K / UHD.” 2015 is the second year the BBS has included 4K / UHD as a trend within the BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index. It was added based on feedback from Devoncroft’s clients. The high ranking of 4K / UHD in both 2014 (ranked #4) and 2015 demonstrates these requests were well-founded.

Many in the industry believe 4K / UHD is the next major driver of infrastructure upgrades – similar to the transition to HD over a decade ago.

While there is no doubt that 4K / UHD is a very important development, the data collected in the 2015 BBS lends skepticism to the proposition 4K / UHD will have a similar impact on the industry as the transition to HDTV operations, which drove a massive wave of technology spending that lasted more than a decade.

Although episodic and documentary content has, or will soon, move to 4K/UHD acquisition along with archive activities (because it extends the useful life of content assets), it will take time for 4K/UHD to move into mainstream live production environments such as news and sports. One reason is creating a live event in 4K / UHD is complex and expensive to create versus an HD broadcast. Uncompressed 4K / UHD requires real-time processing at 12Gbps, and the full production chain is not yet widely available. Another critical issue is that (until mid-2015) most 4K / UHD capable cameras utilize large format single sensors and cine-style PL-mount lenses. While the shallow depth-of-field produced by these acquisition systems is a perfect match for theatrical or drama production, it causes problems in live sports production, where depth-of-field is important to keep critical action sequences in constant focus. There were several announcements by camera manufacturers during 2015 to address this issue with depth-of-field.

Nevertheless, there’s no doubt that 4K / UHD is driving strong interest and excitement in the industry. The question remains whether it will become a mainstream technology driver as HD has been, or whether it will only achieve penetration into technology infrastructure through the normal product upgrade cycle.

The trend ranked #4 in the 2015 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index, “file-based / tapeless workflows,” is a clear indication of the importance of increased efficiency for broadcast technology end-users. This trend has accelerated as the transition to HDTV (ranked #8 this year) begins to decline in developed markets around the world.

Over the past several years, we’ve observed a pattern whereby broadcasters, who have invested considerable time, effort, and money into transitioning their operations to HD, begin to shift their focus towards increasing the efficiency of their operations. Over time, efficiency has become a key driver of broadcast technology purchasing. In fact, our research shows that in many cases, increased operational efficiency and cost savings are more important than cutting-edge technology.

This is because the economics of the entire industry have changed – because of MPCD and other factors – and as a result, end-users must change their cost structure (radically in some cases) in order to generate sustained profitability into the future.

This has implications for the broadcast industry in terms of both workflows and product procurement, and as a result, the importance of both “file-based workflows” and “IP networking & content delivery” has increased as broadcast technology buyers continue to look for efficiencies as they transition to new technical platforms and business models. The desire for broadcast technology buyers to gain operational efficiencies will likely continue to be a strong macro driver in 2015, as broadcasters continue to deploy new workflows.

“Cloud computing / virtualization,” is the #5 ranked trend (maintaining the same position as in 2014 and 2013).

For the past several years, it was apparent that there was not a clear understanding of how cloud technology would be deployed in the broadcast environment, and what benefits it would bring. This is still the case in many respects in 2015. However, similar to observations in 2014, our research shows that despite remaining skepticism about the cloud (not to mention security concerns), the acceptance of (or at least the willingness to consider) cloud technology and related services increased noticeable during the year.

But what are buyers of broadcast technology actually planning to deploy in the cloud, and do they actually trust cloud technology?

There is a substantial amount of additional data captured in the 2015 BBS on what technology segments end-users are deploying and planning to deploy cloud services, along with what efficiencies they hope to achieve by deploying cloud Services. This data is presented in the 2015 BBS Global Market Report (available for purchase).

Selected example data is provided in this free report from the Devoncroft 2015 BBS Global Project Index (see Part 2 of this report, starting on page 29). It highlights how cloud services / cloud technology is one of the fastest growing areas of project spending in the broadcast industry.

But what are buyers of broadcast technology actually planning to deploy in the cloud, and do they actually trust cloud technology? Perhaps more than any other topic, the industry’s plans for cloud have evolved considerably over the past several years.

For the past several years, we’ve been asking BBS respondents what they’ve already deployed, or plan to deploy in the cloud over the next 2-3 years.

As the chart below highlights, the answers given by BBS respondents over the past several years have changed over time, as cloud went from a non-issue, to a curiosity, to a top-5 project.

Today, we are hearing more and more from end-users about serious projects being deployed in the cloud, and many more are evaluating how to take advantage of the benefits offered by cloud technology.

But what are media technology end-users actually deploying in the cloud? This will be discussed in a future post.

“Improvements in compression efficiency,” which is ranked #6 in the 2015 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index is consistent with the desire for increased efficiency. With content distribution models having migrated from single linear broadcast channels, to multi-channel Pay TV playout, to a totally on-demand environment, high quality compression is a critical success factor for broadcasters and content playout platforms.

A plethora of new channels, and the desire for simultaneous bandwidth saving and increased image quality for MPCD services have driven an increasing focus on high quality compression systems. For the past several years this has resulted in better MPEG-2 and H.264 compression products for primary distribution, contribution, and redistribution to consumers. H.265 (HEVC) compression technology holds the promise of further reducing the bandwidth required to deliver high quality images, particularly for 4K / UHD channels. Despite continued momentum in 2015, HEVC is still in early stages of adoption, though wider deployments are expected over the next 12 to 18 months.

In addition to creating greater efficiencies, end-users are also looking for ways to generate incremental revenue in an environment where the economic model of the industry is changing dramatically. Thus “video-on-demand,” which is ranked #7 in the 2015 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index, will remain a strong driver for content owners, media companies and broadcasters. The combination of MPCD, better compression technology, and an ever-increasing channel count, will drive video on demand deployments, whether via traditional broadcast and pay TV platforms, or over the internet or mobile networks.

The #8 ranked trend in the 2015 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index is the “transition to HDTV operations.”

The transition to HDTV has been a huge driver of broadcast technology spending for more than a decade, but 2015 BBS respondents report that it continues to decline in terms of future commercial importance to their organizations. In 2015, the technology required for the transition to HDTV is well understood by the majority of the market, even those who have not yet made the transition.

Despite its gradual decline in the 2015 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index rankings, we believe that the HD transition will continue to be one of the most important industry drivers over the coming years. There are a number of reasons for this, but the most important is that there is still a long way to go in the HD transition on a global basis. Indeed, our research shows that 2014 was the first year the total penetration of HDTV infrastructure surpassed the 50% mark for the global market.

Nevertheless, with the transition to HD having been a critically important driver for so many years, it begs the question of what’s next — as broadcast technology end-users in developed markets approach the completion of their HD transition, where does their focus (and spending) shift?

Better compression technology and lower cost integrated playout platforms (such as “channel-in-a-box”), will facilitate an ongoing proliferation of new TV channels. This will in turn drive a focus on bringing highly automated operations to channel playout and master control environments. Thus we expect to continue to see a strong interest in the “move to automated workflows” over the next several years. Automated workflows are also seen as drivers of efficiency.

While efficiency is undoubtedly very important to end-users, actually making money from new on-line channels has driven a significant increase in focus on content monetization via “targeted advertising,” which is ranked #10 in the 2015 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index.

“Remote production,” which is ranked #11 in 2015 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index is another trend that is focused on efficiency. Through the use of remote production, broadcasters can lower their costs of producing live events, whether a small local soccer match or the World Cup. Our research suggests that despite the potential for savings using “remote production” approaches for high-profile events, end-users are not yet comfortable adopting these approaches given the mission critical nature of the associated productions. Therefore, the greater adoption for remote production is lower-tier events with inherently constrained revenue opportunities.

Similarly, broadcasters and media companies can achieve enormous cost-savings through the trend ranked #12 in the 2015 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index, “centralizing operations,” including playout and transmission. A relevant example of centralized operations is the North American sporting leagues (including MLB, NFL, and the NBA) creating central facilities to handle the responsibility of in-game replays.

Although it’s towards the bottom of the rankings at #13, “analog switch-off” is very important for those regions where it’s happening today – primarily as mandated by local governments. Our research shows that analog switch-off (also called “digital switch-over” in some territories) has driven huge waves of CapEx in those markets where it has already occurred.

As with previous years, the following trends were ranked towards the low-end of the Index: “transition to 3Gbps operations”, “transition to 5.1 channel audio”, “outsourced operations”, “3D TV” and “green initiatives.”

.

The information in this article is based on select findings from the 2015 Big Broadcast Survey (BBS), a global study of broadcast industry trends, technology purchasing plans, and benchmarking of broadcast technology vendor brands. Nearly 10,000 broadcast professionals in 100+ countries took part in the 2015 BBS, making it the largest and most comprehensive market study ever conducted in the broadcast industry. The BBS is published annually by Devoncroft Partners.

Granular analysis of these results is available as part of various paid-for reports based on the 2015 BBS data set. For more information about this report, please contact Devoncroft Partners

This is the first in a series of articles about some of the findings from Devoncroft’s 2014 Big Broadcast Survey (BBS), a global study of broadcast industry trends, technology purchasing plans, and benchmarking of broadcast technology vendor brands. Nearly 10,000 broadcast professionals in 100+ countries took part in the 2014 BBS, making it the largest and most comprehensive market study ever conducted in the broadcast industry.

Measuring the Most Important Trends in the Broadcast and Digital Media Technology Industry

Each year, Devoncroft Partners conducts a large-scale global study of the broadcast industry called the Big Broadcast Survey (BBS). Nearly 10,000 broadcast professionals in 100+ countries participated in the 2014 BBS, making it the most comprehensive study ever done in the broadcast industry.

One of the key outputs from the BBS is the annual BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index. This is a ranking of the broadcast industry trends that are considered by BBS respondents to be the most commercially important to their businesses in any given year.

In order to ensure that the trends we measure each year in our research are the most relevant to the industry, we spend a considerable amount of time seeking feedback about the structure of our reports from a wide variety of industry professionals.

As part of this process, the composition of the BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index is reviewed each year in conjunction with Devoncroft clients, broadcast technology end-users, and a variety of domain experts. New trends are added to the Index when BBS stakeholders believe that the value of this additional trend information outweighs the resulting distortion of the year-over-year comparisons.

Based on the input we received during the planning stages of the 2014 BBS project, it was decided that the following two trends should be added to the list of trends included in the composition of the 2014 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index:

4K / UHD

Remote Production

The benefit of this change is that we were able to capture a significant amount of information about information about the perceptions of 4K/UHD and remote production, including deployment plans.

The downside of this approach is that the inclusion of new trends will almost certainly cannibalize the rankings of other trends in our Index. Therefore, it is slightly more complicated to make a 1:1 comparison of how trends were ranked in 2014 versus 2013 across different demographics.

The 2014 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index

To create the 2014 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index, we presented BBS respondents with a list of 18 industry trends and asked them to tell us which one trend they consider to be “most important” to their business, which one trend they consider to be “second most important” to their business, and which other trends (plural) they consider to be “also very important.”

We then apply a statistical weighting to these results, based on how research participants ranked the commercial importance of each trend.

Please note that our goal from this question is to help clients gain insight into the business drivers behind the respondent’s answer. Therefore, respondents were asked to rank these trends in the context of the commercial importance to their business, rather than “industry buzz,” or “cool technology,” or marketing hype.

Keep in mind that this chart shows a measure of what people say is important to the future of their businesses, not what they are doing now, or where they are making money today. These topics will be addressed in future posts.

Please note that this chart shows a weighted index, not a measure of the number of people who said which trend was most important to them.

Also, please note that this chart measures the responses of all non-vendors who participated in the 2014 BBS, regardless of company type, company size, geographic location, job title etc. Thus the responses of any demographic group such as a particular company type or geographic location may vary widely from the results presented in this free summary information.

The fact that multi-platform content delivery (MPCD) is considered by respondents to be the industry trend that is most important commercially to their business jumps off the page, and is perhaps not surprising, given the rise of on-demand video platforms, consumer mobility, and sales of smartphones and tablets. Indeed, across multiple studies, research participants have repeatedly told us that multi-platform content delivery is the trend that is most commercially important to their business over the next several years.

However, our discussions with broadcasters, content owners, and technology vendors indicate that despite the obvious fact that the way content is delivered and consumed has changed forever, this has not yet translated into profitable revenue streams for end-users. There are a number of reasons why this is the case, and these have significant implications for content owners, broadcasters, and technology vendors.

Although multi-platform content delivery is by far seen as the most important trend in 2014, there are quite a few other interesting things to consider in the above chart.

Since the first BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index was published in 2009, “multi-platform content delivery,” “file-based / tapeless workflows,” “IP networking and content delivery” and“transition to HDTV operations” have been the top ranked trends. However their relative position has shifted dramatically. For example, in 2009, the transition to HD operations was the #1 ranked trend globally, and MPCD was ranked #4. In 2014, these were ranked #6 and #1 respectively.

For a number of years the transition to HDTV operations has been a major driver of end-user technology budgets, and therefore technology product sales. The HD transition continues to be and is likely to remain one of the strongest drivers of broadcast industry revenue, particularly in emerging markets, but has this year dropped to the #6 position on a global basis.

We provide significant coverage of the global transition to HDTV operations in the 2014 BBS Global Market Report (report available for purchase). This includes a granular breakdown of the current and projected future progress that end-users have made in their transition to HD, as well as the upgrade plans for more than a dozen product categories including cameras, switchers, routers, servers, graphics, encoders, communication links, and encoders. We’ll also be publishing more information about project-based spending and the HD transition later in this report, as well as on the Devoncroft website.

Another trend that has become increasingly more important over the past several years is “IP networking & content delivery,” which is ranked as the #2 most important trend in the 2014 BBS Global Trend Index.

The move to IP-based infrastructure become increasingly important as broadcast technology buyers continue to look for efficiencies as they transition to new technical platforms and business models. In 2014, the move to IP-based infrastructure took on a new sense of urgency as buyers began to seek ways to implement IP-based systems in broadcast operational environments.

With new standards (e.g. SMPTE 2020-6), new market entrants (e.g. Arista Networks), and a high-profile joint task force on networked media (JT-NM), sponsored by the EBU, SMPTE, and VSF; the move to IP not only looks more and more inevitable, it is also likely to be a major industry driver over the mid to long-term. As a result, we believe that the coming move to IP (which is still at least a year or two away in practice) has profound implications for both broadcast technology buyers and suppliers.

The move to IP is driven by an ever-increasing desire for broadcast technology buyers to gain operational efficiencies. We believe this trend is set to accelerate, and will continue to be a strong macro driver of the overall industry for the next several years, as broadcasters continue to deploy new workflows.

The trend ranked #3 in the 2014 BBS Global Trend Index, “file-based / tapeless workflows,” is another indication of the importance of increased efficiency for broadcast technology end-users. This trend has accelerated as the transition to HDTV (ranked #6 this year) begins to wind down in developed markets around the world.

Over the past several years, we’ve observed a pattern whereby broadcasters, who have invested considerable time, effort, and money into transitioning their operations to HD, begin to shift their focus towards increasing the efficiency of their operations.

Over time, efficiency has become a key driver of broadcast technology purchasing. In fact, our research shows that in many cases, increased operational efficiency and cost savings are more important than cutting-edge technology.

This is because the economics of the entire industry have changed – because of MPCD and other factors – and as a result, end-users must change their cost structure (radically in some cases) in order to generate sustained profitability into the future.

This has implications for the broadcast industry in terms of both workflows and product procurement, and as a result, the importance of both file-based workflows and “IP networking & content delivery” has increased as broadcast technology buyers continue to look for efficiencies as they transition to new technical platforms and business models. The desire for broadcast technology buyers to gain operational efficiencies will likely continue to be a strong macro driver in 2014, as broadcasters continue to deploy new workflows.

The trend ranked #4 in the 2014 BBS Global Trend Index is “4K / UHD.”

2014 is the first year that we have included 4K / UHD as a component of the BBS Global Trend Index. It was added based on feedback from our clients, readers, and stakeholders. The fact that 4K / UHD is ranked #4 in the first year of its inclusion in the Index demonstrates that these requests were well-founded.

Although 4K / UHD is still in its early phases of deployment, many in the industry see it as the next major driver of infrastructure upgrades – similar to the transition to HD a decade ago.

While there is no doubt that 4K / UHD is a very important developments, we are skeptical that it will have the same impact on the industry as the transition to HDTV operations, which drove a massive wave of technology spending that lasted more than a decade.

Although episodic and documentary content has or will soon move to 4K/UHD acquisition and archive (because it extends the useful life of content assets), it will take time for 4K/UHD to move into mainstream live production environments such as news and sports. One reason for this is that it is still complex and expensive to create an entire live event in 4K/UHD, compared to today’s HD broadcast. Uncompressed 4K/UHD requires real-time processing at 12 Gbps, and the full production chain is not yet widely available. Another critical issue is that most 4K/UHD capable cameras utilize large format single sensors and cine-style PL-mount lenses. While the shallow depth-of-field produced by these acquisition systems is a perfect match for theatrical or drama production, it causes problems in live sports production, where depth-of-field is important to keep critical action sequences in constant focus.

Nevertheless, there’s no doubt that 4K/UHD is driving strong interest and excitement in the industry. However, it remains to be seen whether it will become a mainstream technology driver as HD has been, or whether it will go the way of 3D production, which caused huge excitement in 2010 before being relegated to near-non-existence just a few years later.

“Cloud computing / cloud based services,” is the #5 ranked trend (maintaining the same position as in 2013).

It seems that you can’t read anything about technology these days (broadcast or otherwise) without coming across some mention of “the cloud.” So why is something that is apparently so important to so many people not ranked higher?

For the past several years, it was apparent that there was not a clear understanding of how cloud technology would be deployed in the broadcast environment, and what benefits it would bring. This is still the case in many quarters in 2014, but this year our research shows that while there continues to be skepticism about the cloud (not to mention security concerns), the acceptance of (or at least the willingness to consider) cloud technology and services increased rapidly in 2014.

Indeed the Devoncroft 2014 BBS Global Market Report shows that Cloud Services / Cloud Technology is one of the fastest growing areas of project spending in the broadcast industry in 2014. This (paid) report also includes information about what technologies end-users are planning to deploy in the cloud, when they are planning to deploy them, and what efficiencies they hope to achieve by doing so.

For example, data from the Devoncroft 2014 BBS Global Market Report shows that Cloud Services / Cloud Technology has become one of the fastest growing areas of project spending in the broadcast industry this year.

Significantly more information about the attitudes of broadcast technology buyers towards cloud technology, and what broadcast technology buyers are likely to actually deploy in the cloud is available from Devoncroft Partners.

The #6 ranked trend in the 2014 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index is the “Transition to HDTV Operations.”

The transition to HDTV has been a huge driver of broadcast technology spending for more than a decade, but 2014 BBS respondents report that it is declining in terms of future commercial importance to their organizations. In 2014, the technology required for the transition to HDTV is well understood by the majority of the market, even those who have not yet made the transition.

Despite its gradual decline in the 2014 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index rankings, we believe that the HD transition will continue to be one of the most important industry drivers over the coming years. There are a number of reasons for this, but the most important is that there is still a long way to go in the HD transition on a global basis. Indeed, our research shows that 2014 is the first year that the total penetration of HDTV infrastructure has surpassed the 50% market for the global market.

Nevertheless, with the transition to HD having been a critically important driver for so many years, it begs the question of what’s next — as broadcast technology end-users in developed markets approach the completion of their HD transition, where does their focus (and spending) shift?

A review of the 2014 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index seems to indicate the answer lies in products and services that facilitate increased operational efficiency, and new revenue streams.

“Improvements in compression efficiency,” which is ranked #7 in the 2014 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index is consistent with the desire for increased efficiency. With content distribution models having migrated from single linear broadcast channels, to multi-channel Pay TV playout, to a totally on-demand environment, high quality compression is a critical success factor for broadcasters and content playout platforms.

A plethora of new channels, and the desire for simultaneous bandwidth saving and increased image quality for MPCD services have driven an increasing focus on high quality compression systems. For the past several years this has resulted in better MPEG-2 and H.264 compression products for primary distribution, contribution, and redistribution to consumers. H.265, aka HEVC compression technology holds the promise of further reducing the bandwidth required to deliver high quality images, particularly for 4K/UHD channels. However, it’s still early days for HEVC, and widespread deployments are still a year or two away. Nevertheless, it’s clear that for many end-users of broadcast technology, HEVC could be a game-changer.

In addition to creating greater efficiencies, end-users are also looking for ways to increase their revenue in an environment where the economic model of the industry is changing dramatically. Thus “video-on-demand,” which is ranked #8 in the 2014 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index, will continue to be a strong driver for content owners, media companies and broadcasters. The combination of MPCD, better compression technology, and an ever-increasing channel count, will continue to push video on demand deployment, whether via traditional broadcast and pay TV platforms, or over the internet or mobile networks.

Better compression technology and lower cost integrated playout platforms (aka “channel-in-a-box”), will facilitate an ongoing proliferation of new TV channels. This will in turn drive a focus on bringing highly automated operations to channel playout and master control environments. Thus we expect to continue to see a strong interest in the “move to automated workflows” over the next several years. Automated workflows are also seen as drivers of efficiency.

While efficiency is undoubtedly very important to end-users, actually making money through the monetization of the new automated channels that are coming on-line has driven a significant increase in focus on content monetization via “targeted advertising,” which is ranked #10 in the 2014 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index.

“Remote production,” which is ranked #11 in 2014 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index is another trend that is all about efficiency. Through the use of remote production, broadcasters can lower their costs of producing live events, whether they are as small as a local soccer match or as large as the World Cup.

Although it’s towards the bottom of the rankings at #13, “analog switch-off” is very important for those regions where it’s happening today – primarily as mandated by local governments. Our research shows that analog switch-off (also called “digital switch-over” in some territories) has driven huge waves of CapEx in those markets where it has already occurred.

As with previous years, the following trends were ranked towards the low-end of the Index: “transition to 3Gbps operations”, “transition to 5.1 channel audio”, “outsourced operations”, “3D TV” and “green initiatives.”

.

.

The information in this article is based on select findings from the 2014 Big Broadcast Survey (BBS), a global study of broadcast industry trends, technology purchasing plans, and benchmarking of broadcast technology vendor brands. Nearly 10,000 broadcast professionals in 100+ countries took part in the 2014 BBS, making it the largest and most comprehensive market study ever conducted in the broadcast industry. The BBS is published annually by Devoncroft Partners.

Granular analysis of these results is available as part of various paid-for reports based on the 2014 BBS data set. For more information about this report, please contact Devoncroft Partners

As the saying goes: “the customer is King”, and last week the place to pay homage to some of the biggest buyers of broadcast technology was the annual Broadcaster Panel at the 2014 HPA Tech Retreat in Indian Wells, CA.

Always a highlight of the HPA conference, this unique event is a one-hour Q&A-based discussion featuring the top technology executives from major broadcast networks and TV station groups.

Starting with the topic of spectrum repacking, sharing and multicasting, broadcasters were in general agreement that although there may be some stations that want to cash out in the auctions, it does not make sense to permanently give up spectrum that might be used later for a variety of services delivering everything from mobile to 4k/UHD.

PBS’s Wolf raised the point that although today’s encoders make channel sharing a viable option, advances in technology cannot solve the thorny contractual issues of how a for-profit station can share spectrum with a non-profit PBS station, or whether it makes commercial sense to do so at all. “Channel sharing is a reasonable option for people to look at, but at the end of the day management has to look at this and say we can take a one-time infusion of cash from the auction and give up forever some portion of our spectrum which is our bread and butter, and forgo a lot of future options.”

Siegler agreed, saying that Cox sees surrendering spectrum as limiting the future, and that the company has “no interest” in turning over any of its spectrum.

Sinclair’s Aitken went further “No matter what happens, if the next generation of broadcasting is planned using legacy ATSC 1.0 and MPEG-2 standards, everyone will be ‘half of a broadcaster’ because what you can do within the limitations of ATSC 1.0 is only half of what broadcasters are capable of doing.” Aitken added that “any consideration of channel sharing would have to go hand-in-hand with the notion of advancing broadcasting to the next generation broadcast platform,” which he described as being all IP-based and capable of supporting both mobile and fixed services, which Sinclair believes will very important to the livelihood of broadcasters in the future.

According to Siedel, the issue comes down to quality for CBS, so channel sharing is out of the question. The network always strives to deliver maximum quality, so until very recently CBS has used its entire 19.3 Mbit/s for HD. Recent advances in compression have enabled CBS to lower the bitrate slightly, freeing up approximately 1.5Mbit/s for a sub-channel.

The Future of 4K/UHD

The industry’s top techs were also in broad agreement on 4K/UHD – delivering it over the air is not a priority.

“We’ve done a lot of testing of 4K in our labs, and you know what, it produces the best HD pictures we’ve ever seen,” said Fox NE&O’s EVP and GM Richard Friedel. “We think there is some there is some viability for 4K sets for consumers, but that’s not to suggest that we will be broadcasting 4K any time soon.”

Aitken put it more bluntly: “4K is not going to happen for broadcasting until ESPN says so.” Said differently, unless content owners demand it or incremental revenues are available to broadcasters, 4K/UHD is not going to become a mainstream priority.

Siedel says CBS is a fan of 4K — for acquisition. He described how CBS/CW program delivery specifications include separate elements for acquisition and delivery. “On the acquisition side, our philosophy has always been that we want to maintain the highest possible quality levels so that we ensure the residual asset value of that content.” Accordingly, for the past two years the CBS/CW specifications have allowed for acquisition in 4K/UHD, although this is not mandatory today. “Having an edited 4K master on the shelf is going to add to the asset value in the future, no matter how it’s distributed.”

On the sports side, CBS and others have been using 4K for acquisition (CBS used six 4K cameras at the 2013 Super Bowl), and using this content to extract HD content, as well as for super slow-mo replays. 4K/UHD will continue to be used in this way for sports productions.

Ironically it was Dave Siegler from Cox Broadcasting (whose parent company is a cable MSO) who expressed disappointed in the downgraded signal that cable companies deliver to the home with compression, and asked rhetorically whether 4K delivered to the home look like HD should be.

Integer Frame Rates

The panel disagreed on several important topics. On the subject of integer frame rates, Siedel said that the industry will likely be stuck with 59.94 for many years to come due to the millions of hours of 59.94 content on the shelf and the complexity of converting back and forth from 59.94 to 60 in the plant.

Aitken disagreed, saying video content creation is exploding, and that the amount of content created in the next 10-15 years will equal all the content ever created. Therefore it makes sense to Sinclair to move forward with all new content generated at integer frame rates, while maintaining compatibility with legacy non-integer material.

Friedel agreed with Aitken saying that Fox has been advocating that new formats (e.g. 120 fps) would be integer-based, and convert to non-integer rates for legacy compatibility.

Cable Unbundling

Another area of disagreement had to do with the unbundling of cable programming.

Friedel said that Fox “firmly believes that the cost of TV will go up for people if it’s unbundled. If you think about the way a show is put together an marketed, there is no possible way that popular television programming will be able to be produced and sent to consumers can be sent to consumers at the same rate they are paying today. Prices would go way, way up.”

Aitken countered saying “unbundling is inevitable and will happen naturally due to an environment of hybrid convergence of content of content across multiple platforms. If broadcasters had a decent platform, we’d be delivering a Sinclair bundle to the home. Unbundling will happen as a natural occurrence of the proliferation of platforms that can bring content into the home.”

IP Broadcast Infrastructures and Software Defined Networking

Moving on to what is sure to be one of the biggest technology trends over the next 5+ years, the panelists were asked how long they think it will take for broadcasters to truly move to full IP infrastructure software defined networking (SDN).

Wolf said although it will take a few more years, PBS is currently building a new disaster recovery center that’s based completely on virtualized IT systems, along with “little bits” of traditional broadcast gear. Although this new facility is not yet based on SDN or cloud enabled, it’s the first step on the path. DR is a great test facility so it’s a positive step along the way, “but as we look at our next big playout system, the big question on the table is whether we can go all IP for all the routing in the plant and the suspicion is that we can.”

Friedel agreed, saying that IP is “well along the way” towards becoming real. We do have IP-based routers in our plant today, and IP technology is just going to proliferate. If you walk into any of our equipment rooms at the moment, there is almost no classic broadcast vendor anymore. Instead you’ll see rows of Hewlett Packard, IBM, and Cisco. We’re really in an all-IP world now. We’ve got huge virtualization farms already and this is coming. In five years no one will build a plant of our size that’s not based on IP concepts.”

Other issues included a discussion of electronic interference, which is affecting both C-band contribution feeds and wireless microphones. Friedel said “white space interference is a huge issue for broadcasters,” and then quipped that viewers of the 2014 Super Bowl may have noticed that either the hands of the on-air talent had gotten smaller or the microphones had gotten larger. He explained that in order to eliminate the risk of wireless interference in the crowded Met Life Stadium, Fox had switched to new wireless microphones from Sennheiser that operate in 1.6 GHz band. Although these microphones worked perfectly, they require more power and larger batteries, making them 40% larger than traditional wireless microphones.

ATSC 3.0 and the Future of Broadcasting

But the most controversial topic had to do with the future of broadcasting, and the various options for the ATSC 3.0 standard.

Aitken kicked off the debate by expressing concern that “that virtually all activity and focus of the ATSC has been on high data rate delivery to a fixed receiver environment” (in other words, delivering a single channel to a single UHD display in the home).

While Aitken sees this as part of the future of broadcasting, “Sinclair has fought for 15 years to bring mobile capability to broadcasting.”

“Fifteen years ago, people looked at us cross-eyed and said ‘mobile: who’s going to do that?’” said Aitken. “Look around today and the question is: where is broadcast to mobile? There has been an avoidance [at ATSC] of moving forward any proposals that of that would take bits away from fixed service for mobile services. There may be a need to run a parallel path outside of ATSC with industry adopters bringing forward a de-facto next generation technology that then gets adopted by the broadcast community.”

According to Aitken the new broadcast standard must meet all the needs of all broadcasters, rather than perpetuating an old-world view that all broadcasting is about is television, which is what politicians in Washington DC think of when they hear the word ‘broadcasting.’

“Every broadcaster would say they want [their content] to be on every device, said Aitken.” It’s just a question of how to get there. Broadcasters should be in a position to be their own gatekeeper in getting their content and licensed content delivered to the consumer. It’s really a matter of setting off a warning bell that we’re not going to sit still and wait for another mistake to happen.”

Aitken’s comments received push-back from CBS’s Siedel who said that the ATSC 3.0 effort has solicited bids from all over the world, and there are now at least 13 proposals being considered, many of which include mobile services, including LTE broadcast, DVB-T2, and even 8K from Japan. Siedel said the process was still at the early stage, and we still have a long way to go.

Fox’s Friedel added the final comment of the session, saying that if broadcasters are not involved in the ATSC 3.0 process, they should get involved as soon as possible. “The key for the ATSC is a standard that is flexible and extensible, and allows the business to grow and change with the future. I can’t predict the future better than anyone else, but there is going to be a transition from big screens today to portable devices. That much is clear.”

As always the HPA broadcaster panel did not disappoint the audience. There are very few opportunities to hear from the industry’s top buyers and get their unvarnished opinions on the future of the industry.

Much of the company’s growth likely comes from international markets given that the company now has five offices in Asia alone.

Interestingly, much that has been written about Elemental recently focuses on compression rather than transcoding – particularly in regard to HEVC compression of 4K images. According to the article, Elemental did a joint demo with Qualcomm at the recent CES exhibition where they demonstrated streaming 4K video to a tablet at 10Mbit/s using HEVC compression, although it’s not clear whether this was done in real-time (although I attended CES, I did not see the demo).

It’s interesting to see that Elemental is pushing both encoding and transcoding these days, because expands their market into new areas.

It also potentially puts them into competition with large number of companies from Ateme to Zencoder, and everyone in between including industry giants such as Cisco, Ericsson, and Harmonic. But when the market shifts to a new technology standard, as it will eventually do with HEVC compression (and maybe 4K delivery), there are opportunities for new players to break into the market and gain market share.

The fact that the company is working with Qualcomm indicates that Elemental’s HEVC technology is partially targeted, at least initially, at mobile devices rather than broadcast transmission. This makes sense as our previous research has shown that HEVC will likely be adopted first in streaming and mobile applications where downloadable codecs are more readily available than in markets such as cable and satellite.

Elemental is privately held. In May 2012, the company closed a $13m fundraising round led by Norwest Venture Partners, which brought the total amount of funding raised by Elemental to just under $30m. In 2010, the company closed a $7.5 funding round, led by General Catalyst, Voyager Capital and Steamboat Ventures, who also participated in the May 2012 fundraising round.

In addition to generating a lot of interest in the company, Elemental’s aggressive push into 4K and HEVC has also likely created an opportunity for the company to enter new areas of the market during this time of technology transition.

For Elemental’s core business of transcoding, the fact that broadcasters and media companies are working to deploy multi-screen services, video transcoding has become a hot space, and Elemental’s impressive year-over-year growth is certainly a testament to this phenomenon.

As a result of the growth in this technology area, transcoding has also attracted its fair share of financing and M&A activity. Here’s a quick run-down of some of the recent transcoding-related news and deals:

In January 2013, Amazon unveiled its “Amazon Elastic Transcoder.” Based on the company’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud computing platform, the Elastic Transcoder the service provides “a highly scalable, easy to use and a cost effective way for developers and businesses to transcode video files from their source format into versions that will playback on devices like smartphones, tablets and PCs.”

In August 2012 Brightcove bought Zencoder, a 2-year old start-up with $2m in revenue for $30m, and subsequently launched a cloud based transcoding service at IBC 2012

This is the second in a series of articles about some of the findings from Devoncroft’s 2013 Big Broadcast Survey (BBS), a global study of broadcast industry trends, technology purchasing plans, and benchmarking of broadcast technology vendor brands. Nearly 10,000 broadcast professionals in 100+ countries took part in the 2013 BBS, making it the largest and most comprehensive market study ever conducted in the broadcast industry.

.

In a previous article, we published the 2013 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index, which shows how a global sample of nearly 10,000 broadcast professionals ranked a set of broadcast industry trends in terms of the commercial importance of each one to their business.

This article compares how the relative commercial importance of these trends has changed over time, and looks specifically at what trends were ranked higher or lower in terms of commercial importance in 2013 versus 2012 by our global panel of research participants.

Why Tracking Movement of Trends is Important

Understanding changes in how technology buyers rank the relative commercial importance of industry trends provides important insight into what might be next for the industry.

Whereas it’s tempting to use historical sales data to try to determine what factors will drive industry CapEx in the future, it’s actually quite difficult to use the relative performance of a technology vendor in the past as predictor of the behavior of technology buyers in the future.

Broadcast industry CapEx tends to be project-based. Expenditure is typically contemplated based on business needs, and then deployed according to available resources. And yet, technology buyers must always be cognizant of a wide variety of factors, including technology evolution, business risk/reward, and even government intervention.

Changes to end-user rankings of the commercial importance of trends can be used to predict where technology expenditure may be headed in the future.

This is because industry trends drive capital projects, which in turn drives technology budgets, which in turn drives product purchase. In other words, what technology buyers say is commercially important to their business in the future (i.e. trends) will likely turn into what they are budgeting for tomorrow (i.e. projects).

Therefore it’s useful to review how the relative importance of broadcast industry trends has changed over time, because it provides a preview of where technology purchases will be made in the future.

In 2009, the BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index was dominated by the “transition to HDTV operations.” “Multi-platform content delivery” was ranked #4 on this list.

The following year, in 2010, “multi-platform content delivery” had become the most important industry trend, narrowly eclipsing “file-based/tapeless workflows” (which were combined in the 2010 index) and the “transition to HDTV operations.”

By 2011, multi-platform content delivery began to dominant trend in the BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index, ranking significantly higher than all other industry trends. Analog-switch-off was added to the Index in 2011.

Last year (2012) multi-platform content delivery continued to dominate the BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index, and file-based workflows surpassed transition to HDTV operations for the first time. Cloud computing/cloud-based services was added to the Index in 2012.

.

.

The 2013 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index

To create the 2013 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index, we presented BBS respondents with a list of 16 industry trends and asked them to tell us which one trend they consider to be “most important” to their business, which one trend they consider to be “second most important” to their business, and which other trends (plural) they consider to be “also very important.”

We then apply a statistical weighting to these results, based on how research participants ranked the commercial importance of each trend, and use this information to create the BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index, which is shown below.

In the context of this article, it should be noted that trends included in the 2013 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index have not changed from the previous year.

The composition of the BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index is reviewed each year in conjunction with Devoncroft clients, broadcast technology end-users, and a variety of domain experts. New trends are added to the Index when BBS stakeholders believe that the value of this additional trend information outweighs the resulting distortion of the year-over-year comparisons.

Based on this input, it was decided not to make any changes to the composition of the 2013 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index. The benefit of this is that it’s easy to make a 1:1 comparison of how trends were ranked in 2013 versus 2012. The downside is that some emerging trends such as 4K, bonded cellular, HEVC encoding, social TV etc., were not included in the 2013 Index. However, these issues (and more) were included in other parts of the 2013 BBS, and there is a significant amount of available data on these subjects within various 2013 BBS reports.

The chart below shows a comparison of the BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index from 2012 and 2013. It measures changes in how end-users ranked the commercial importance of industry trends on a year-over-year basis.

MPCD, file-based/tapeless workflows, IP networking & content delivery, and the transition to HD operations have occupied the top four positions in the BBS Global Trend Index since its inception in 2009, although it is interesting to note there has been considerable movement in their position in the actual rankings.

While multi-platform content delivery (MPCD), was once again the top-ranked trend in 2013, it did decline slightly on a year-on-year basis versus the rest of the Index. Nevertheless, MPCD was ranked considerably higher in 2013 than any other trend, which was also the case in 2012.

Leaving aside the numerical rankings for the moment, other observable changes in the relative commercial importance of broadcast industry trends between 2012 and 2013 include:

Some of these changes are subtle, and do not necessarily imply that the relative importance of the trends have changed over time. However, other movements in the Index do indeed impact the actual numerical position of each trend within the ranking.

As shown below, there were some interesting changes in the numerical ranking of the trends in the 2013 Index versus the 2012 Index.

The column on the left of the table below shows the numerical rankings of trends in 2013. The number in parentheses to the right of each trend shows how it ranked in the 2012 BBS Index. Although there were no changes at the top and bottom of the 2013 Index versus the 2012 Index, there was movement in between.

Several trends were ranked more highly in 2013 than in 2012. For example, IP networking & content delivery moved up one spot to the #3 ranking (eclipsing the transition to HDTV operations for the first time in the Index).

Other net gainers in numerical rankings include IP networking & content delivery, cloud computing/cloud-based services, centralized operations, transition to 3Gbps (1080p) operations, and transition to 5.1 channel audio; all of which show year-over year increases in the Index ranking.

Net decliners in 2013 versus 2012 include the transition to HDTV operations, video on demand, analog switch-off, and 3D-TV, which had the largest year-over-year percentage drop.

The table below provides a consolidated view of the relative movement in numerical rankings of broadcast industry trends between 2012 and 2013.

So what does this all mean?

On a global basis, the strong showing of “file-based workflows,” coupled with a y-y decline in the commercial importance of the “transition to HDTV operations” implies that those broadcasters that have largely completed their HD transition are now focusing on introducing efficiencies that will ultimately lead to new sources of revenue.

Indeed, the continued domination of “multi-platform content delivery” and “file-based workflows,” combined with the increasing importance of “IP networking & content delivery” and “cloud computing/cloud-based services” demonstrates that in 2013 broadcast technology buyers will spend money to create operational efficiencies, while at the same time working to generate new revenue streams through multi-screen offerings. However, it remains to be seen whether many broadcasters will be able to create sustainable profits from multi-platform offerings.

It should be noted that there may be significant regional variations in this data. For example, the transition to HDTV operations is likely to remain a strong driver for those end-users who have not yet started, or substantially completed their migration to HD. Likewise, although “analog switch-off” is ranked towards the bottom of the 2013 Index, it’s probably safe to assume this is a top priority in in those territories where governments have mandated a switch to digital broadcasting.

Turning Talk into Action – When do Trends Become Capital Projects?

There is a difference between recognizing that a trend is commercially important and having a business plan in place that capitalizes on that trend. As stated previously, our view is that industry trends drive capital projects, which in turn drive technology budgets, which in turn drive product purchase. In other words, what technology buyers say is commercially important to their business in the future (i.e. trends) will likely turn into what they are budgeting for tomorrow (i.e. projects).

The 2013 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Trend Index shows that monetizing content on multiple platforms remains the top objective for broadcast professionals in the year ahead. However, many industry participants — on both the content and technology sides of the business — are still experimenting with their business models.

At some point these trends will drive capital projects, if they are not already doing so today. When that happens they will become major drivers of technology spending in the broadcast industry.

In a future article, we’ll look at where money is being spent today in the broadcast industry.

The information in this article is based on select findings from the 2013 Big Broadcast Survey (BBS), a global study of broadcast industry trends, technology purchasing plans, and benchmarking of broadcast technology vendor brands. Nearly 10,000 broadcast professionals in 100+ countries took part in the 2013 BBS, making it the largest and most comprehensive market study ever conducted in the broadcast industry. The BBS is published annually by Devoncroft Partners.

Unless otherwise specified, all data in this article measures the responses of all non-vendor participants in the 2013 BBS, regardless of factors such as organization type, organization size, job title, purchasing and geographic location. Please be aware that responses of individual organization types or geographic locations may be very different. Granular analysis of these results is available as part of various paid-for reports based on the 2013 BBS data set. For more information about this report, please contact Devoncroft Partners

A previous version of this article appeared in the “Tech Thursday” Spotlight Section of TVNewsCheck

.

Against the backdrop of the ongoing European debt crisis and the afterglow of the 2012 Olympics, nearly 51,000 visitors made their way to Amsterdam for the annual IBC trade show. Major themes of the five-day broadcast technology jamboree included vendor consolidation, buzz about new technologies for multi-screen content delivery and social TV, futuristic technology demonstrations, and several important new product introductions.

The broadcast vendor community got a little less fragmented on the first morning of IBC, with a merger announcement by two Norway-based video transport technology providers — Nevion and T-VIPS.

Although no additional deals were unveiled at the show, vendor consolidation was one of the most discussed themes at IBC, and according to statements made by some of the leading vendors, there is potentially a lot more consolidation on the way.

Newly acquired Miranda technologies made its debut as a “Belden brand” at IBC, and Belden EVP Denis Suggs was on hand at the show to meet customers and explain his company’s vision for the broadcast industry, and why they decided to buy Miranda in one of the largest broadcast technology M&A deals in recent years.

In a nutshell, Belden saw the opportunity to acquire a cash-generating company with a top-class management team that’s growing faster than the overall market and jumped at it. Including Miranda, Belden now generates approximately $450 million a year in broadcast-related revenue, making it one of the industry’s largest players, and it appears they are not done doing deals in this space.

Suggs said Belden views Miranda as a platform from which is can further expand its broadcast industry operations, and that it intends to support Miranda’s existing plan for further acquisitions.

Grass Valley CEO Alain Andreoli echoed a similar sentiment at his company’s press conference. He said that Francisco Partners, the private equity firm that owns Grass Valley, has a $3 billion fund behind it and will support Grass Valley’s efforts to become an industry consolidators.

When the dust settles, he said, Grass Valley may not be the largest player, but it will certainly be in the top three. Last year, Grass Valley bought PubliTronic, a provider of channel-in-a-box (CiaB) technology, to gain a larger foothold in the playout market. Expect to see Grass Valley and other players making additional strategic moves that help them enter attractive new market spaces.

But most IBC M&A talk centered on Harris Broadcast, which is currently being divested by its parent company. Although rumors were flying at the show about who might buy the division, its executives were tight-lipped. Harris Broadcast President Harris Morris would only say that the deal is progressing according to plan, and is on track to be completed as soon as the end of 2012.

New products and services based on cloud technology, multi-platform content delivery and social TV services dominated many demonstration and hallway conversations at IBC, particularly in the “Connected World” pavilion, where dozens of new and established firms displayed a host of products aimed at securing a place in this emerging ecosystem.

Despite the enthusiasm of vendors, many buyers publicly and privately expressed caution about the technology.

Critics of cloud technology cited immature technology, bandwidth limitations, security, and an unproven business case as barriers to its adoption. Likewise, broadcasters and content owners expressed concern over the “disconnect” between the desire of end-users to receive and consume video content on an ever-increasing number personal devices, and the ability of broadcasters to create sustainable and profitable multi-platform business models.

Cloud-based discussions at IBC ranged from real-world case studies of how EVS helped broadcasters set up private clouds to facilitate remote production of the Euro 2012 soccer championships and London Olympics, to practical solutions from Signiant and Aspera for managing the delivery of file-based content over IP-enabled and cloud-based infrastructure, to new solutions for cloud-based video production.

Cloud-based production is an emerging trend, but initiatives such as the ‘Adobe Anywhere’ initiative will prove to be a catalyst in this area. Taking cloud-based production to the “next level” are new firms like VC-backed start-up A-Frame, which is building from the ground-up a complete cloud-based video production environment that marries the experience of broadcast and post-production experts with forward-thinking IT-based software experts.

On the multi-screen front, Ericsson introduced its first encoder based on HEVC/H.265 compression technology. The company says that its HEVC implementation offers the potential for users to reduce bandwidth by up to 50%, thereby enabling more efficient delivery of content over multiple platforms, including mobile networks.

Harmonic unveiled a new version of its ProMedia transcoder, aimed at enabling its customers to deliver an integrated multi-screen experience to their subscribers. Harmonic also introduced new members of its senior management team: CMO Peter Alexander, and CTO Krish Padmanabhan, who recently joined the company from Cisco and NetApp, respectively.

Noticeable by their absence on the Harmonic booth at IBC were the familiar Omneon and Rhozet brand names, which have now been absorbed into Harmonic. “Harmonic is a branded house, not a house of brands, and our singular focus is delivering excellent video quality to consumers everywhere,” said Alexander.

The Sony/SES Astra demonstration of live delivery of 4K images over satellite drew a lot of attention.

For many years, 4K images have been trade show “eye candy” for visitors, but at IBC 2012 Sony and SES showed that technology exists today to transmit high quality 4K images over satellite at a manageable 50mbit/s using h.264 compression technology. The stunning live video images were delivered via an SES satellite to an 84-inch Sony Bravia 4K display.

The demo prompted speculation that 4K will be the “next HD” in terms of consumer adoption and broadcast infrastructure upgrades. Other observers took a more practical approach, saying that the industry might see 4K being used as a high-end production format in near to mid term, but that it will be a long time before broadcasters who have already spent millions on the transition to HDTV decide to upgrade again to 4K.

Indeed, when it comes to broadcast infrastructure upgrades it is operational efficiency, not higher resolution, which appears to be the primary demand of broadcasters. Thus, many vendors at IBC were promoting solutions designed to help broadcasters transition their operations to file-based and IT-oriented workflows.

One of the ongoing initiatives in this area has been the development by a large number of vendors of integrated IT-based playout technologies, more commonly known as channel-in-a-box (CiaB). These systems offer the promise of increased operational efficiency and significant cost savings through the integration of previously disparate playout and master control functionality into a single IT-based platform. Over the past several years, major vendors including Grass Valley, Miranda, Snell, Harmonic, and Evertz have offered products.

At IBC 2012, Harris became the latest entrant into the market with the launch of Versio, a CiaB system based on several of the company’s existing technology platforms including the Nexio server family, ADC automation, and Inscriber graphics.

When describing the new Versio product at the company IBC press conference, Harris Morris said the No. 1 requirement for automated IT-based playout systems is reliability, and that this is an area where Harris Broadcast excels. Morris also emphasized that CiaB platforms rely heavily on automation technology, where Harris Broadcast is an established leader, making the company a natural choice for broadcasters considering integrated IT-based playout.

Although Harris Broadcast touted the fact that their Versio platform is based on the company’s existing technology platforms, it stopped well short of saying that the new system is a direct replacement for its current products, particularly its popular Nexio server family.

Instead the company described Versio as a robust cost-effective way for broadcasters to quickly add new services and digital subchannels channels, and to provide backup in emergencies.

“Channel-in-a-box should be about opening up new possibilities rather than limiting how a broadcaster can operate across multiple on-air scenarios,” said Andrew Warman, senior product manager at Harris Broadcast. “It’s limiting to look at channel-in-a-box as a system replacement for servers, automation, and other play-to-air systems. Broadcasters need freedom to build appropriate workflows for their operations, including external components.”

However, other vendors clearly see the CiaB market differently, and have taken a very different approach than Harris Broadcast, especially those firms that do not have an existing playout server business to protect.

Snell Chief Architect Neil Maycock said that his company’s ICE platform is not only “ready for prime-time,” it is on the air today delivering high value content for major broadcasters. Maycock also said that ICE has a unique architecture that enables it to scale from a single channel implementation, through a multi-location centralcasting model, to a large multi-channel playout environment.

PlayBox CEO Vassil Lefterov said he has built his entire business on disrupting the traditional server-based playout market. “We believe our singular focus on this application is a key advantage,” he said. “Playbox has thousands of live channels on the air today and is working to re-define playout operations for many of our customers.”

Grass Valley, which like Harris has a significant video server business, took a more pragmatic approach. SVP and CMO Graham Sharp said that “it’s likely CiaB and other IT-based playout systems may ultimately impact everyone’s server business, so we’ve taken the decision to cannibalize our own products where necessary by embracing IT technology, because if we don’t do it to ourselves someone else will.”

Grass Valley was among the vendors with significant new products. Introductions included a new LDX camera platform that scales from a basic model to a high-end super-slow motion system; a new video server family, and brand new electronics for the Kayenne and Karrera production switchers. Grass Valley said all its new products feature native 1080p processing, and provide straightforward upgrades via software.

Grass Valley also made bold claims about its future product plans, stating that by 2014 it will have replaced its entire portfolio with all new 1080p, IT-focused products.

GV’s Sharp also hinted at a major NAB 2013 announcement from Grass Valley: “Next year we will introduce a completely new integrated IP-based platform that is totally format agnostic.” he said. “We believe this new platform will enable a new way of working that we call non-linear production….”

All Grass Valley products, including those launched at IBC 2012, will be compatible with the new architecture, he said.

Sharp concluded GV press conference by saying: “If there is one take-away from this presentation about Grass Valley, it’s this: We’re back.”

I’ve recently been looking at how broadcast technology trends vary by geographic region, based on the research data from the 2009 Big Broadcast Survey. The examples I have shown previously look at the differences in technology trends based solely on geography.

Now it’s time to get a bit more granular and look at how just broadcasters view these technology trends, and whether there are regional variations in their opinions. Approximately 1,400 broadcasters participated in the study. Each was presented with a list of 15 industry trends and asked to choose the three trends from the list (ranking them 1-3) that they feel will have the most significant impact on the way they do business over the next 2-3 years. The chart below shows their responses, which are weighted based on how they were ranked by the respondents. If a trend was ranked most important, its weight=3; if a trend was ranked #2, its weight=2; and if a trend was ranked #3, it is weight=1.

The broadcaster's view of industry trends by region

In general it appears that broadcasters around the world are roughly aligned in terms of overall opinion of technology trends, but there are a few regional variations.

Just as with the overall market, the transition to HDTV and tapeless workflows are the top trends for broadcasters, followed by multiplatform delivery and file-based workflows. Interestingly, broadcasters in EMEA rank the move to file-based workflows higher than their counterparts in the Americas and Asia, while ranking multi-platform content delivery lower.

Otherwise, it is broadcasters in Asia who vary from their counterparts in the Americas and EMEA.

For example, broadcasters in Asia rank the following trends differently than their counterparts in the Americas and EMEA (although some of these are still at the low end of the range):

* IP content delivery (lower)

* automated worflows higher (higher)

* 3DTV (higher)

* Set-top box PVR (higher)

* Network PVR (higher)

Once again, some of the trends that we often read about in the trade press — e.g. the transition to 3Gbps and 3DTV — are relatively far down the list of business priorities for broadcasters (#9 and #11 respectively), which implies that broadcasters are continuing to move to HDTV operations while striving for efficiency in their operations rather than pursuing new technology.

Here’s the full list of technology trends from the study, in the order that they were ranked by the broadcasters:

In a previous post about broadcast industry trends, I looked at at a ranking of top trends in the broadcast industry and made the comment that there is considerable variation in response when you segment data by geography and customer type. One of the really interesting things about the data in the 2009 BBS is that is can be sliced and diced in many ways, thereby providing insight through granular analysis.

Here’s an example of how trends can vary by geographic region:

This chart shows responses to the same question as the previous post — i.e. “please choose from this list the top three trends that will most affect the way your company does business over the next 2-3 years” — from the point of view of people in different geographies. Once again, a simple weighting formula was used to generate these rankings — if a technology was ranked 1st (weight=3), 2nd (weight=2) or 3rd(weight=1). This was done to illustrate the relative importance of each technology trend to the respondent. The trends in this chart are then expressed as a percentage of the total weighted votes. As you can see, there are some interesting differences between the views of respondents in the Americas, EMEA and Asia.

While the transition to HDTV is still the top trend for all three geographies, there are differences in how important this trend is to the businesses of the respondents. In the Americas, the transition to HDTV scores 23.79%; in EMEA is scores 21.92% and in Asia is scores 17.36%. There are similar difference in the scores of the “file-based workflows” question. This trend appears significantly more important to Europeans than it is to Americas and especially to respondents in Asia.

A couple more observations:

Transition to HD and tapeless workflows are the top two trends in all three regions — despite the variations in importance of these trends relative to one another

Some of the trends that are in the news these days — e.g. transition to 3Gbps and 3DTV did not score particularly high. Perhaps the reason we read about these trends in trade publications is that this vendors want to push the next new thing, while their customers want to complete the transition (to HD or tapeless for example) that they are in the middle of now, rather than worrying about the next new thing.

A few of the more “advanced” trends (multi-platform content delivery, 3D TV) scored higher in Asia than they did in the Americas or EMEA

Here’s the full list of the 15 trends from the study, ranked in order for each region.